Oliver wants some more – OLIVER TWIST – Charles Dickens

The extract “Oliver wants some more” belongs to Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, an example of Victorian novel. 

Starting from the title, the reader may create some expectations on the content of the extract: indeed, the reader might focus his/her attention on the protagonist of the novel, Oliver Twist, who “wants some more”. The expression might underline Oliver’s lifestyle condition since it seems that he is a poor person.

Considering the structural level, the extract could be arranged into two sequences: the first one is a descriptive section and therefore it is based on the technique of telling, while the second one is dialogic and therefore the narrator privileges the technique of showing.

Starting with the reading, in the first lines, the intelligent reader understands the narrator sets the narration in a workhouse during the mealtime. Right from the beginning, it comes into surface the novelist’s intention to highlight the poor condition of children who had to live in a workhouse. In order to reach his aim, he gives a portrait of the Victorian Age putting into focus the role children, men and women played into the society. For example, in the very first words, the use of the passive form “the boys were fed” underlines the passive role of children and their submission to the master, conveying the idea of the asymmetric relationship between children and the master in the Victorian age. In addition, the master is ladling the gruel “dressed in an apron for the purpose and assisted by one or two women”. Here, the reader understands the narrator creates a comic effect both by an exaggerate use of language and irony, in order to make the master becoming a caricature and to criticise indirectly the society. In addition, the narrator wants also to convey the idea that in the Victorian Age woman had to help man. Therefore, both woman and children were considered inferior to men, who had power. Immediately after, there is another ironic expression: “of this festive composition”. So, if on one side the use of irony and exaggeration is a way to make the reader laugh, on the other one, it is used both to make a denunciation of the society and to make the reader reflect on children’s poor conditions. Right from the first lines, the intelligent reader also understands the narrator is a third person omniscient one. Through it, Dickens could intervene in the narration to provide indirectly his point of view about the society. Going on with the analysis, the first introductory sequence focuses on the description of the workhouse, the habits of the children and their conditions. Moreover, there is also the narration of the episode when a tall child convinced the other to ask for more food and after “lots were cast”, it was Oliver’s turn.

The second sequence reports in a direct speech Oliver Twist’s request for more food. In particular, Oliver tells the master: “Please, sir, I want some more”, the words “please” and “sir” convey the submitted position of the children. The reactions of the masters and the assistants portray the Victorian Age’s society: there was determined role and position that couldn’t be ignored. Indeed, the master “turned very pale” and “rushed in great excitement”, “the assistants were paralysed with wonder”, “horror was depicted on every countenance”. So, in asking for more food, Oliver Twist is trying to turn upside down the traditional rules of the workhouse, and he is seen as a criminal because he fought the master’s authority. At the end, since he tried to change the rules, Oliver is offered for five pounds to anyone who would pay for him. Therefore, the conclusion of the extract makes the reader became definitely aware of the low position and role of children and how the Victorian Age society was organized.  

Summing up, the overall effect is that the children in the workhouse live in poor conditions and have no freedom, since they have to be submitted to the supremacy of the master. In addition, even if the extract might seem comic at a first reading, the narrator’s aim is to make the reader reflect on how children’s life was and how society was in the Victorian Age through the use of rhetorical language. Indeed, by using exaggeration and irony, the narrator makes a sort of hidden criticism and in a way or another, comes into surface also Dickens’ thoughts about the Victorian society. 

To conclude, the ideal reader could be anyone, but in particular the people who are able to catch the irony since the narrator uses it to portray the Victorian society and therefore he offers the reader an occasion to reflect about the Victorian reality.